Accidental Effect
by holme-james
Summary: A little experiment gone awry pulls Garrus and femShep together; very close together. This is during ME 2.
1. Chapter 1

It was a beautiful day on board the SS Normandy. Of course, you wouldn't be able to tell by looking out, since it would reflect back the same starry abyss that hung indefinitely in existence. However, within Shepard's cozy quarters was a new invention tinkered together by Dr. Mordin Solus, which told Shepard's brain what time it would be back on Earth. It consisted of three decorative lamps-which could be easily calibrated to change color-strung throughout the room, and some kind of mechanical process which dimmed or brightened them in 'real Earth' time. Shepard had no idea of the specifics, for she could only stand a couple minutes of Solus' blabbering (albeit intelligent and surely useful to some) before she asked him to sing his famous Scientific Solarian song.

"You should go on Galactic Idol!" she had told him enthusiastically, to which he responded with a stare and an attempt at a smile before listing the reasons why it would be a terrible idea.

If there was one thing you could count on in this life, it would be Solus' obviousness and strict adherence to reason.

Shepard was lying on the floor of her quarters with a cool damp cloth on her forehead, trying very hard to imagine she was relaxing on something painfully hard - a roof, perhaps - under the Earth's sun. Yet every cell in her body, which she sometimes thought was 75% logic, was refusing to forget the light buzzing of the false sunshine lamps, and was keeping her grounded to the Normandy's metal floor.

Shepard's eyes shot open as a sudden sound beyond the door alerted her to a presence.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"Pizza delivery for a Mrs. Vakarian!" a cheerful voice called out cockily.

_Joker, _Shepard whispered to herself, _what an idiot._

The small smile curving onto her lips defied her thoughts and expressed her friendly, bordering on sisterly (and she knew too well how dangerous it was to have more than necessary feelings for people in the circumstances) emotions for Joker.

"Joker, you bastard. Come in."

"It would be my pleasure," he replied, his smile evident in his tone.

Shepard was already sitting uncomfortably straight and at alert when he got inside the doors. He took a relaxed stance leaning against a wall.

"I hate to have to remind you, but I'm not Mrs. Vakarian."

"Not yet," Joker smirked, "but like I said, I can offer you my expertise in the area of wooing men. I know how they run," he tapped the side of his head with two fingers.

Shepard stifled a giggle, reminding herself that a commander does not, under any circumstances, turn into a little school girl. Except for that one time on Halloween when it was essential to infiltrating a moon drug ring, but, reminiscing aside, she kept the laugh to herself.

"You're an expert on wooing men, eh?" she taunted.

Shepard could have sworn she saw a blush creep up joker's neck and start bleeding into his cheeks, but she decided to let it go.

"Jesus, Shepard. You know I didn't mean it like that!" He took a quick breath and then continued, "Anyway, the reason I came here was to -"

"Crash the ship?" she interrupted. Something about Joker made her playful side come out, she thought, which was not very professional, but nonetheless a moderate stress reliever.

Joker pretended to sigh angrily at her but ended up smiling at the same time. Sometimes he felt like he had about the same control over his body as a puppy playing with a toy.

"No, but I'll let EDI know how little faith you have in her skills. I'm here because the Illusive Man told me you're supposed to go to the Citadel with your lovebird for an experiment. Highly dangerous, critical to the advancement of stealth technology - particularly Dr. Solus', and inadvertently top secret. I told him, no problem, just what you like. I don't think he spends enough time with humans to detect sarcasm anymore. Or he just hates me. Either way, you're supposed to be there, ready to be probed, drugged, whatever they're doing, in 0300 hours."

"Why didn't he tell me this himself? Or why not tell EDI?"

"Who knows. He isn't called the Illusive Man for nothing. But he did tell me - and I quote - 'make no mistake, I am trusting you with this knowledge not because you are trustworthy, but because you have no friends and likely will not make any in the time that it takes to complete this mission.' What an upstanding guy. Really is well placed in the customer service department."

He rolled his eyes.

"Well, time to go back to my comfy seat flying this beast. Good luck. Getting into Garrus' pants, I mean."

Shepard rolled her eyes back at him, mentally scolding herself for the childishness of the gesture.

"Appreciate it."

After he had left, Shepard began changing into her official uniform, and in doing so found a sticky note stuck to her chair. It was in Joker's writing.

_Shep,_

_Found out on a mission recently that Garrus likes human feet. Like, like-likes them._

_..._

_Just kidding! Have a good time._

_Wear protection ;)_


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard arrived at the Citadel ten minutes early. Garrus was already there waiting, staring at a water fountain which had multicolor lights beneath it that changed for each being that walked by. He was also twiddling his talons - Shepard almost thought 'thumbs' - to some kind of inner rhythm.

His mandibles twitched as she approached, and he subsequently looked up.

"Garrus, long time no see," she said awkwardly.

They hadn't spoken in at least three months, as he had volunteered to explore some tiny planets devoid of life on a solo mission.

"How were the Falkoros planets? Harvest anything interesting?"

She mentally kicked herself; she hadn't meant to imply that what he was doing was bound to be uninteresting. But apparently Garrus didn't catch the possible misunderstanding, because he replied calmly.

"Commander Shepard, good to see you."

Shepard couldn't ignore the way his low voice resonated with her lady parts. _Perhaps it's a sign that my period is coming, _she thought, trying to make excuses for her animalistic body reactions.

"Nothing out of the ordinary has been found on the planets yet. So far it seems as if one was a plant harvest world owned by an old tribe, whose existence has been completely forgotten, covered up by tall reeds and stems. The others appear to be barren wastelands without any sign of water previously existing there naturally. One planet did have a small lake made by a species or by accident, but definitely not naturally."

"How did you know it wasn't a naturally occurring body of water? " she inquired.

"The water was neon pink."

"Ah," she responded, feeling a self consciousness that she had tried to bury for ages. Garrus' demeanor seemed to evoke it from her.

"Let's go do whatever business we have to. I want to get it over with."

Shepard nodded her head in agreement.

They started towards the large doors, and Shepard had started listing weapons in her head as practice when Garrus slowed to a stop.

He turned rather dramatically to Shepard, and she straightened her back and looked on expectantly.

"Oh, and off the record, I was told something very... Interesting earlier. Something to do with you and, um, turian feet? Or feet-like talons, rather."

Shepard could feel herself beginning to heat up, but out of annoyance or embarrassment, she couldn't tell.

"Joker. That absolute _tool!_ I can assure you I have no such fetish. Although I'm sure your talons are, uh, very nice. Attractive."

Garrus chuckled, turning back around to start walking again. Shepard swore she saw a little swagger in his walk, but perhaps her mind was pulling a Joker. Either way, she was entirely embarrassed for calling his talons 'nice', and, to top it all off, _attractive. _Yes, she had seen them on occasion, but it's not like she was _obsessed _or anything. They were simply biological assets which gave Garrus adequate balance, nothing more. End of topic.

"I like your feet, too," Garrus called back.

_Or not, _she thought to herself; mentally imagining Joker hanging from the front of the Normandy in a galactic wedgie.

As they stepped inside the large, rectangular, nondescript building, Shepard inwardly sighed. Someone in a white lab coat was there to greet them already, which meant less awkward silences to fill (or to keep awkward) with her and Garrus. The creature in the infomercial-approved generic, important-looking attire was a light purple with specks of red, green and orange scattered about as well as navy blue stripes. It had three spaghetti-like arms which flowed at its sides, and two crablike claws at the end of very muscular humanoid arms.

Garrus cleared his throat and spoke, and Shepard aided with the UASL (Universal Alien Sign Language) translations just in case.

It simply stared at them, clicking its claws together and occasionally licking a noodle-arm.

"It feels like the beginning of a long day," Shepard mumbled, and she thought the way Garrus twitched his mandibles indicated the equivalent of a smirk.

_Or perhaps that's simply your ego speaking, _she thought to herself, and then _shut up, brain!; _followed by _stop talking to yourself Shepard!_

The inner monologue was interrupted by a deep, raspy throat-clearing sound at the corner of the room. Looking over, the two soon-to-be test subjects were surprised to see none other than Grunt.

"Hello," Garrus said, implying a question with his tone, but doing it so subtly that he could have deniable plausibility if things ever got heated.

Garrus didn't much like Grunt as of recently. He couldn't put his talon on it, but the general aftertaste of chewing gravel was brought to his mind every time he saw Grunt. He had no doubt that he was a great fighter, and possibly even better than himself if it came to brute force attacks. But something about him - perhaps his reactive and corrosive attitude - struck him as a danger.

"Hello. I'll be conducting this experiment. Any problems must be forwarded to the Illusive Man by way of you talking to him on the Normandy, AFTER what we do here is completed. Got it?"

Shepard nodded her head, feeling rather excited. Garrus reluctantly nodded his head and gave a small grunt (heh) of acknowledgement.

"So, who is your partner then?" Shepard asked, waving her hand at the creature, "we haven't been able to communicate with it."

Grunt looked at each of them slowly in turn, with a grave look on his face, and then burst into sudden maniacal-sounding laughter.

Garrus responded by widening his stance and putting his right talons by the gun in his holster at his side. Shepard crossed her arms and leaned on one leg more than the other; a signature move among the Normandy crew.

"And what is it that's so funny?" Garrus inquired.

"That's no employee, or whatever you two assumed. That's the lab's pet Horkle."

Garrus and Shepard relaxed, both feeling fairly embarrassed.

"Now then, let's get started. You're both in for a bumpy ride."

The two followed Grunt into a room that looked like a human police station's interrogation room. The door closed behind them, automatically locking with ten deadbolts and an electric force field.

Garrus and Shepard shared a look of sarcastic excitement.

"I can't wait" Garrus spoke.


End file.
